Playlist 04.05.20 : Five Songs for the Weekend

NIKI says of her new single, “”Switchblade” is the song that kicks off Moonchild, which I’ve been working on for almost two years now. This single marks the beginning of Moonchild’s sonic journey, which is ironic because it was one of the last songs I wrote for the album. “Switchblade” represents an iron clad attitude and outlook – conquering whatever you want, whatever is in your vicinity or in your way. Your “switchblade faith” allows you to accomplish anything!”

Moonchild is a concept album that will feature 10 tracks, and explores her journey through three lunar phases – crescent moon (innocence, curiosity, embarking), half-moon/eclipse (loss of hope, disillusionment) and full moon (self-discovery, strength).

Right now, a lot of people are covering other people’s songs. They’re sitting home on quarantine, they’re messing around with acoustic guitars, and they’re staring soulfully into their webcams, sharing their own versions of their favorite tunes. But Amber Mark’s new single isn’t that. Instead, it’s a radical reimagining — a full-studio version of a classic that utterly breaks it down and then builds it back up.

Amber Mark was a Stereogum Artist To Watch in 2017. For the past few years, she’s been exploring the boundaries between R&B and dance music, and she’s made music that’s both smooth and personal. She’s worked with people like DJDS, Dirty Projectors, and DRAM. And now she’s taken Nirvana’s timeless 1993 yowler “Heart-Shaped Box” and remade it as a lush, funky R&B jam.

Mark’s “Heart-Shaped Box” is a proper major-label single, not a stuck-at-home goof. She produced it herself, using the song as a vocal showcase and crafting a loose synth-bass groove. Considering the position that “Heart-Shaped Box” occupies in our shared cultural imagination, this should probably come across as a stunt. But Mark zooms in on the melody and makes the song work in a whole new form. It’s really cool.

Montreal’s bedroom pop artist JORDANN has been on our radar for more than a year now, since he released his amazing breakthrough track “I Revel in You”. Since then, the artist has consistently pleased us with a sharp and groovy cocktail of dashing basslines, dreamy synths, and melancholic croon. His debut EP features the previously shared gems “Café Speed” and “Poll Line“, as well as the highlight “Marketa”. The new track is inspired by the character of Markéta Irglova in John Carney‘s movie Once.

After three years spent out of the spotlight and fostering new creative alliances, Earl Sweatshirt has returned with the music he was always meant to make. It furthers his progress from foul-mouthed prodigy to steady and confident auteur, a journey he began with the fittingly insular I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside. The loss of his father in January of this year—shortly before they planned to reunite and have a “long-anticipated conversation”—has added a sense of gravity to his work. “Not getting to have that moment left me to figure out a lot with my damn self,” Earl said in a press release.

“The Mint,” the latest single from his third record Some Rap Songs, offers an experienced perspective of life, love, and death. Featuring ambling, understated production by Black Noi$e and a verse from New York rapper Navy Blue, “The Mint” contains ups and downs and observational asides. It is descriptive, not prescriptive—and it’s only obliquely about Earl. One moment Earl shouts his friend, Bronx rapper MIKE; the next he is decrying gentrification (“Crackers pilin’ in to rape the land”) and spitting the funniest and most concise summary of hip-hop I’ve ever heard: “Say I’m ballin’ out the hourglass/Grand total, it’s a whole lotta raps.” It’s the sort of reflection that can be achieved, it seems, only after realizing that tragedy is indifferent to your creative achievements. He’s not necessarily figured out himself, but on “The Mint,” Earl Sweatshirt takes in the world around him to find that it’s your surroundings that matter most.

“Still Here” is the first new track from Kllo, aka cousins Chloe Kaul and Simon Lam, since last year’s “Back To You”.

The track is inspired by suffocating relationships, and lands with a video directed by Matt Sav, which is shot on 16mm. Kllo say, “The video uses visual metaphors to symbolise the struggle and perseverance through relationships by being trapped in plastic, sinking in water etc.”

Sav adds, “I wanted the video to be a poetic depiction of two people staying in a relationship beyond its logical end. I explored the interplay between love, obsession, imagined futures, lived pasts and the insanity that can be found in between. In our relationships, especially without good definitions around what love really means to us, we find the edges of freedom and responsibility blurring.”

“In the past, we’ve tried to speed things up and push away from that,” explains Kaul. “But now we’re sitting where it feels comfortable to us. Comfortable but also daring, because we know it’s not as polished in certain ways. We’re doing us, we’re doing Kllo. We’re a bit older now. We aren’t compromising as much on this album. It’s a little bit classier and more tasteful this time around.”